{"id":8754,"date":"2025-03-23T00:03:57","date_gmt":"2025-03-23T05:03:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.lfs.org\/blog\/?p=8754"},"modified":"2025-12-24T21:34:35","modified_gmt":"2025-12-25T03:34:35","slug":"lionel-shrivers-mania-offers-darkly-satirical-tale-about-an-alternate-america-denying-differences-in-intelligence","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lfs.org\/blog\/lionel-shrivers-mania-offers-darkly-satirical-tale-about-an-alternate-america-denying-differences-in-intelligence\/","title":{"rendered":"Best Novel finalist review: Lionel Shriver\u2019s Mania offers cautionary tale about an alternate America denying differences in intelligence\u2028"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Michael Grossberg<\/a><\/p>\n

Lionel Shriver, arguably the world\u2019s greatest living libertarian novelist, has found another timely subject worthy of her illuminating insight and piercing wit.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Living up to her iconoclastic reputation, the British-American novelist finds satirical, intensely dramatic and gut-wrenchingly personal dimensions to bring to life in Mania.<\/i><\/p>\n

The cautionary fable depicts a slightly different but recognizable contemporary world where good intentions have gone terribly astray.<\/p>\n

Set in the recent past and present but in a wryly revealing alternate history, Mania<\/i> portrays an America taken over by a new ideology: the Mental Parity movement.<\/p>\n

Warning: Any resemblances to any cultlike trends or movements of today or just yesterday are purely intentional.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

EGALITARIANISM AS A DENIAL OF INTELLIGENCE
\n<\/b>
\nShriver conceives a recognizable alternate America that quickly develops into a delusionary culture and authoritarian regime denying any variability or genuine differences in intelligence, talent or individual merit. Any disagreement or rebellious behavior is vilified and condemned or prohibited as the worst type of bigotry and discrimination.<\/p>\n

Set beginning in 2011 during the Obama administration, the novel portrays Trump becoming president in 2016, but as a Democrat and partly reflecting the rising movement\u2019s acceptance of the \u201cdumb.\u201d Biden still replaces Trump as president in 2020, but only, Shriver suggests, as politics and culture deteriorate from dumb to dumber.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
Author Lionel Shriver (Creative Commons License)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

A previous two-time Prometheus Best Novel finalist for The Mandibles: A Family, 2029-2047<\/a> and Should We Stay Or Should We Go, <\/a><\/i>Shriver is no stranger to challenging mainstream assumptions.<\/p>\n

In fact, she often assumes the archetypal role of courageously and very publicly pointing out that the emperor has no clothes. Her worst sin, from the establishment perspective, might be that she often fashions a compelling narrative case that proves it.<\/p>\n

In Mania,<\/i> melding her fierce imagination and understanding of human nature with her well-honed talent for ingenious plotting and credible characters, she sheds light on the perennial temptations of the morally self-righteous to impose their visions on everyone else. For their own good, of course – and no matter the devastation that result.<\/p>\n

THE RISE OF A REVOLUTIONARY CULT
\n<\/b>
\nMania<\/i> charts the creeping impact of the Mental Parity movement and its progressive (and progressivist) take-over of academia, media, education, medicine, and government itself. In the process, Shriver poignantly dramatizes its harmful impact on public reputations, private relationships, careers, friendships, families and children.<\/p>\n

Evoking echoes of the Chinese Cultural Revolution sparked by communist dictator Mao Zedong in the 1960s, the Mental Parity Movement divides and separates co-workers, friends, and parents from children. In the frenzy of its fearful mob excesses, the movement and its virtue-signaling foot soldiers gleefully pursue cancellations and related humiliations.<\/p>\n

Although framed as an if-this-goes-on fantasy, Mania<\/em> disconcertingly holds up a cracked mirror to recent (and sadly ongoing) culture wars revolving around race, gender and identity politics, where facts, truth and objective reality itself are suppressed, distorted or denied in the name of a perverse perfectionism.<\/p>\n

THE UGLINESS OF MOB PSYCHOLOGY
\n<\/b>
\nIntentionally disturbing to experience, especially as it unfolds, Shriver\u2019s novel reaches devastating emotional depths in revealing the ugly daily contours of the movement and its impact on the lives, livelihoods and relationships of one family.<\/p>\n

At the center of the novel is first-person narrator Pearson Converse, the cussedly independent-minded wife and mother of three children – two of super-high intelligence and one, her youngest, of less-than-average intelligence.<\/p>\n

Adding emotional dimensions and themes of envy, rivalry and betrayal is the plot thread about Pearson\u2019s\u00a0 <\/span>lifelong friendship with an ambitious media-personality career woman and how their friendship is twisted and torn by the new cultural wars.<\/p>\n

When Pearson\u2019s brilliant older son Darwin is disciplined and expelled from school for making an \u201cabhorrent\u201d comment that only yesterday wouldn\u2019t have raised an eyebrow – that another boy is a \u201cmoron\u201d – she begins to feel that she and her family have entered a Bizarro alternate universe.<\/p>\n

Rebellious, at times foolishly impulsive or self-destructive, and initially even finding it hard to believe what\u2019s occurring, Pearson doesn\u2019t fully grasp yet the emerging rules of the Orwellian new order. No wonder she can\u2019t really explain the rules to her son, or ultimately protect her children.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t understand the rules anymore!,\u201d Darwin exploded.
\n\u201cOkay, so a person can\u2019t be stupid. You\u2019ve explained why, over and over, and no, I still don\u2019t see how, like as, like, one day back around the beginning of fifth grade suddenly a fucking doofhead wasn\u2019t a fucking doofhead anymore.\u2026This junk is all anyone cares about anymore!\u201d<\/p>\n

EXTENDING THE WISDOM OF ORWELL<\/b><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Especially in its exploration of psychology, culture and language, Shriver\u2019s dystopia explores and extends several of the core themes that George Orwell distilled so memorably in Nineteen Eighty-Four,<\/a> <\/i>aptly inducted in 1984 into the Prometheus Hall of Fame for Best Classic Fiction.<\/i><\/p>\n

Like Orwell, Shriver is not afraid to call out the \u201csmelly little orthodoxies\u201d of the knee-jerk mob or any faction that rises to power and begins abusing it in the name of a holy new pseudo-religion.<\/p>\n

As in Nineteen Eighty-Four and <\/i>Orwell\u2019s Prometheus-winning companion classic Animal Farm,<\/i> <\/a>the idealistic Mental Parity movement inevitably denies reality itself. Even those privately dissenting from the new orthodoxy are bullied to publicly pay lip service to obvious falsehoods in the name of a spurious fairness.<\/p>\n

With the notion that no one is smarter than anyone else enshrined as the newly received gospel, everyone must bow down to the new god – or else be cast out and crucified as heretics.<\/p>\n

A DAMAGING DYSTOPIA
\n<\/b>
\nMania <\/i>is especially incisive in probing the depths of human psychology to reveal the corrupting impact of cult-like beliefs and mob pressures on the mind and soul.<\/p>\n

Beyond its initial good intentions in enabling even the less intelligent to participate more fully in society, much of the Mental Parity ideology is so obviously false that most people implicitly grasp that it\u2019s a fiction.<\/p>\n

Thus, they understand intuitively that the social\/legal pressures to conform to the new religion require mere pretense. Among the public displays of conformity, as universities open offices of Cognitive Equality and the unqualified and incompetent take over many jobs, more people are pushed into public displays, wearing buttons or installing yard signs proclaiming \u201cWe Support Cognitive Neutrality.\u201d<\/p>\n

Yet, as the culture war is won and the State begins to enforce the new normal, no one is allowed to remain truly neutral.<\/p>\n

THE IMPACT ON POPULAR CULTURE
\n<\/b>
\nShriver may be at her wittiest and most perversely perceptive in imagining the censorious impact of the authoritarian ideology on our heritage of movies, TV shows and other aspects of popular culture.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Inevitably, because of their respect for intelligence, Jeopardy<\/i> and the Darwin Awards are canceled, Rubik\u2019s Cube is banned in the barracks, and IQ tests become illegal. The TV quiz show Who Wants to Be a Millionaire <\/i>is reduced to asking contestants simple questions to win, such as what their name is. (If they can’t answer that, then they’re truly hopeless.)<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Once-popular films and shows – Back to the Future, Sherlock, Good Will Hunting, The Social Network, The Big Bang Theory, The Nutty Professor,<\/i> a host of 1950s sci-fi classics, etc. – disappear from late-night TV listings because of their \u201csupremacist\u201d brainiac, eccentric-genius or mad-scientist tropes.<\/p>\n

Once beloved comic characters – such as Steve Martin\u2019s The Jerk<\/i>, Betty White\u2019s Rose in The Golden Girls, <\/i>Rowan Atkinson\u2019s Mr. Bean and Forrest Gump – are retired from public culture because the now-politically-incorrect characters are \u201ctwo fries short of a Happy Meal.\u201d<\/p>\n

While the \u201ccerebral elite\u201d initially lampoon the notion that stupidity is a fiction as \u201cexceptionally stupid,\u201d they quickly enough jump on the fashionable bandwagon \u201cas the drive for intellectual leveling gathered steam.”<\/p>\n

When Converse, a teacher, sarcastically asks a colleague at work whether the new term for \u201csmart phone\u201d is \u201cmediocrity phone,\u201d she\u2019s slapped down quickly. \u201cHow about \u2018phone\u2019? Is that so hard, Pearson?\u201d<\/p>\n

Despite her incredulity at the denial of age-old realities, Pearson does try to be prudent. \u201cPick our spots. This new way of thinking about people is bigger than we are,” she warns. “If we stick up for what we believe in the wrong way, or at the wrong time, we won\u2019t accomplish anything, aside from doing ourselves a great deal of damage.\u201d<\/p>\n

But her words of caution fall short, especially to her own incorrigibly rebellious ears.<\/p>\n

To her credit, Shriver makes her heroine believably human. Pearson has undeniable flaws, which reveal the downside of her \u201clibertarian mindset\u201d even as she justifiably resists \u201cgoing along to get along.\u201d<\/p>\n

As Pearson\u2019s well-grounded and supportive husband points out, she\u2019d be better off not turning everything into a confrontation. (Perhaps that also might serve as a welcome reminder to some other libertarians and anti-statist individualists that behaving politely, reasonably and decently in most social settings can make a more positive impression and be more successful in earning respect for their dissident and unconventional views.)<\/p>\n

Best of all, Pearson ultimately demonstrates admirable consistency in her commitment to reason and libertarian ideals. Even when a backlash develops to the Mental Parity movement and she struggles with the temptation for revenge, she refuses to back any form of coercion, even steps that might be seen as beneficial in holding those responsible for creating the toxic culture and undermining individual rights.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

HOW AUTHORITARIAN IDEOLOGY CORRUPTS LANGUAGE
\n<\/b>
\nShriver is endlessly inventive in her use of language and darkly amusing in her depiction of everyday life. As previously innocent attitudes and behavior become suspect during the Mental Parity movement\u2019s reign of terror, the absurd and picky extremes invite the reader’s appalled laughter.<\/p>\n

At the movement’s height, people no longer can say \u201cdumbbells\u201d or \u201ccrash test dummies\u201d because such common terms suddenly are perceived as encapsulating outmoded prejudices. Instead, people must refer to \u201cweights\u201d and \u201ccrash test mannequins.\u201d<\/p>\n

Inevitably, as language becomes more corrupted, apt words and efficiently concise phrases are replaced with lengthier euphemisms that most find difficult to remember or repeat – undermining the rationality of language and the ability to think and speak clearly.<\/p>\n

Even the convenient and apt term \u201cdimmer switch\u201d becomes verboten. Instead, all right-minded citizens must somehow awkwardly remember to say \u201cswitch that makes things more seeable.\u201d<\/p>\n

Through such absurdities, both humorous and horrific, Shriver succeeds in enlisting her worldwide readers to see many things more clearly – about her fictional dystopia, and our own world.<\/p>\n

In the culture reshaped and society brutally warped by Mental Parity mob rule, the worst thing one can do, short of murder, is use the S-word.<\/p>\n

Children, indoctrinated by their teachers, are encouraged to report parents for once-normal but now-unacceptable behavior. When Pearson\u2019s less-intelligent youngest daughter vengefully discloses that her mom used \u201cstupid\u201d at home, in a forgetful moment of irritation at her behavior, Child Protective Services separates the daughter (and her two older siblings) from the home.<\/p>\n

In the desperate hope to get her children back, Pearson must attend parenting re-education classes – or else her kids will be put into foster care.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Just as Kurt Vonnegut foresaw the devastating consequences of radical coercive egalitarianism taken to inhuman and reality-denying extremes in his story \u201cHarrison Bergeron,\u201d the 2019 Prometheus Hall of Fame inductee, Shriver offers her own satirical but sobering take on the continuing appeal of what she dubs \u201cintellectual egalitarianism.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mania<\/i> also has been compared positively to Philip Roth\u2019s The Human Stain, <\/i>the 2000 winner of the PEN\/Faulkner Award for Fiction. Roth\u2019s speculative novel chronicles the excesses of a new puritanism propelled by the \u201cecstasy of sanctimony\u201d and \u201cthe persecuting spirit\u201d to enact rituals of moral and social purification at the expense of a polarized and demoralized citizenry.<\/p>\n

Those same ugly motivations and behaviors are palpably visible in Mania <\/i>– one of 11 2024 novels nominated for the next Prometheus Best Novel award (and in April selected as a Best Novel finalist.)<\/p>\n

Yet, reflecting Shriver\u2019s unflinching ability to expose reigning delusions and probe uncomfortable realities, Mania<\/i> stands on its own as a gripping portrait of similar human folly.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

RELATED READING:<\/strong><\/p>\n

* Read the Prometheus Blog reviews of other current Best Novel nominees, including Stuart Turton\u2019s The Last Murder at the End of the World<\/a>,<\/em> Danny King’s Cancelled: The Shape of Things to Come<\/a><\/em>, Wil McCarthy’s Beggar’s Sky<\/em><\/a> and Michael Flynn’s In the Belly of the Whale.<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

* Check out the full list of 2024 novels<\/a> nominated for Best Novel.<\/p>\n

* Read the Prometheus Blog review of Shriver’s two Prometheus Best Novel finalists: Should We Stay Or Should We Go<\/em> <\/a>and The Mandibles: A Family, 2029-2047.<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

ABOUT THE LFS AND PROMETHEUS AWARDS:<\/b><\/p>\n

*\u00a0Join us!<\/b> To help sustain the Prometheus Awards and support a cultural and literary strategy to appreciate and honor freedom-loving fiction, \u00a0join<\/a> the Libertarian Futurist Society, a non-profit all-volunteer association of freedom-loving sf\/fantasy fans.<\/p>\n

Libertarian futurists believe that culture matters. We understand that the arts and literature can be vital in envisioning a freer and better future – and in some ways can be even more powerful than politics in the long run, by imagining better visions of the future incorporating peace, prosperity, progress, tolerance, justice, positive social change, and mutual respect for each other\u2019s rights, human dignity, individuality and peaceful choices.<\/p>\n

* Prometheus winners:\u00a0<\/b>For the full list of Prometheus winners, finalists and nominees \u2013 including the annual Best Novel and Best Classic Fiction (Hall of Fame) categories and occasional Special Awards \u2013 visit the enhanced\u00a0Prometheus Awards page<\/a>\u00a0on the LFS website, which now includes convenient links to all published essay-reviews in our Appreciation series explaining why each of more than 100 past winners since 1979 fits the awards\u2019 distinctive dual focus on both quality and liberty.<\/p>\n

*\u00a0Watch videos of past Prometheus Awards ceremonies, Libertarian Futurist Society panel discussions with noted sf authors and leading libertarian writers, and other LFS programs on the Prometheus Blog\u2019s\u00a0Video page.<\/a><\/p>\n

* Read \u201cThe Libertarian History of Science Fiction,\u201d<\/a> an essay in the international|magazine\u00a0Quillette<\/i>\u00a0that favorably highlights the Prometheus Awards, the Libertarian Futurist Society and the significant element of libertarian sf\/fantasy in the evolution of the modern genre.<\/p>\n

* Check out the Libertarian Futurist Society\u2019s Facebook page<\/a> for comments, updates and links to Prometheus Blog posts.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Michael Grossberg Lionel Shriver, arguably the world\u2019s greatest living libertarian novelist, has found another timely subject worthy of her illuminating insight and piercing wit. Living up to her iconoclastic reputation, the British-American novelist finds satirical, intensely dramatic and gut-wrenchingly personal dimensions to bring to life in Mania. The cautionary fable depicts a slightly different … Continue reading Best Novel finalist review: Lionel Shriver\u2019s Mania offers cautionary tale about an alternate America denying differences in intelligence\u2028<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[2353,8],"tags":[2266,2573,581,1372,2310,2572,654,1373,1530],"class_list":["post-8754","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-book-reviews","category-review","tag-best-novel-nominee","tag-cautionary-fable","tag-dystopia","tag-lionel-shriver","tag-mania","tag-mental-parity-movement","tag-satire","tag-should-we-stay-or-should-we-go","tag-the-mandibles"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pe8nGl-2hc","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lfs.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8754","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lfs.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lfs.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lfs.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lfs.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8754"}],"version-history":[{"count":17,"href":"https:\/\/www.lfs.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8754\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8941,"href":"https:\/\/www.lfs.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8754\/revisions\/8941"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lfs.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8754"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lfs.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8754"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lfs.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8754"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}